As much as WiFi and cellular network reliability has improved over the years, it’s not uncommon to find yourself in a situation where connectivity drops or is spotty at best. Somehow in our overconnected world, “offline” mode still exists. When you’re using real-time communications technology, poor service or connection quality can be particularly disruptive.

That’s why we’re excited to introduce our Pre-Call Test tool – a set of tools that will determine if an end-user’s OpenTok-powered call will be successful given their network conditions. The Pre-Call Test can be integrated into your application’s workflow so that your end-users can run the diagnostic test before they even join the session. Based on their test results, you can implement business logic that determines whether a particular user is allowed to publish a stream to the session with video, audio-only mode, and more.

You can dynamically monitor the following statistics for a subscriber:

Audio and video bytes received (bit-rate)

Audio and video packets received

Audio and video packets lost (packet loss)

The Pre-Call Test is implemented as sample code to make it easier for you to customize based on your application logic. We’ve provided certain guidelines for how the call quality experience is going to be (excellent, acceptable, poor) for different combinations of video resolutions, bit-rate and packet-loss. These guidelines can be modified based on your use case and the user experience that you want to create.

As a TokBox customer, you should feel confident that the OpenTok platform will deliver the best possible call experience for your users. Whether it’s through dynamic adaptation or pre-call tests, we’ve got you covered.

As this is in beta mode, we’ll continue to develop and add new features, so jump on board and let us know what you think – all feedback is appreciated. Just send a note to precall-test-beta@tokbox.com.